"Weeks of National Glory": UofL and the College Bowl, 1963

When U of L defeated Iona College on May 5, 1963, it became only the seventeenth team to win the College Bowl television quiz program four times in a row. The popular nationally televised show, sponsored by General Electric, ran on network TV in the late 1950s and 1960s. Every week two college teams of four students each were pitted against each other with the winner returning the next week to take on a new challenger. If a team won five consecutive contests, it was retired. By mid-1963, only ten teams had remained undefeated for five weeks.

The questions thrown at the contestants were brain-wrackers from the liberal arts: literature, history, mathematics, music, art, and science. Correct responses to the "toss-up" question earned the whole team the right to try for "bonus points" by answering several additional questions. A scoreboard recorded the tally while a clock marked off the time left on the thirty-minute program. Members of the studio audience cheered and groaned throughout the fast-paced contests. Early in the spring 1963 semester Martin Stevens, associate professor of English, assembled U of L's team by holding tryouts for 80 students. The new team was made up of team captain Frank Krull, Giles Kotcher, Evelyn Feltner, Anne Groves, with J. Daryll Powell serving alternate and team manager. The team was first pitted against a veteran Kenyon College squad. Having knocked off four consecutive opponents, the heavily favored Ohio team needed only a victory over untested U of L to retire undefeated. Kenyon proved no match for the Louisvillians; nor could the University of Idaho combat the Louisville's brilliant onslaught in round two. Against its third opponent, the University of Delaware, on April 28, 1963, U of L scored 370 points, the second highest in the history of the game to that point. The Courier-Journal editorialized about the "weeks of national glory." A Chicago columnist in town for the Kentucky Derby returned home to write a tongue-in-cheek column about the Louisville university that was "overemphasizing education." He came to see a horse race "and instead, all he heard discussed was a team of young people competing in the 'College Bowl.'"

Students watch UofL play Delaware from the comfort of their dormitory

The fourth opponent, Iona, was a formidable challenger. But Iona tumbled, and U of L joined an elite group of only sixteen other schools that had ever won four consecutive contests out of the 174 that had made the attempt. Alas, the fifth victory and accompanying silver cup were not to be. The game ended with Yeshiva on top by a score of 335 to 140.

A crowd of 200 well-wishers who welcomed home the team at Standiford Field on May 13, 1963. The U of L band played "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here," the crowd along with city, county, and state officials, led by Governor Bert Combs sent up "a deafening roar of applause."

The team's "sterling performances on the air" had secured $13,000 in scholarship funds for the University; "brought national recognition to their school, with practical results already apparent in the flow of enquiries and applications from superior students all over the country"; and, according to the Cardinal opened Louisvillians' "eyes to the academic standing of the university."

Adapted by Katherine Burger Johnson from Morison, William J., "Did U of L really win the old GE College Bowl?" U of L Magazine, Spring 1983: 24-25.